ZAGREB/THE HAGUE, Dec 17 (Hina) - Serbs inflicted much suffering to thousands of innocent people, led by the "blinding fear" that they themselves might become victims of the horrors seen in World War Two, a former Bosnian Serb
President, Biljana Plavsic, said before the Hague-based U.N. tribunal on Tuesday.
ZAGREB/THE HAGUE, Dec 17 (Hina) - Serbs inflicted much suffering to
thousands of innocent people, led by the "blinding fear" that they
themselves might become victims of the horrors seen in World War
Two, a former Bosnian Serb President, Biljana Plavsic, said before
the Hague-based U.N. tribunal on Tuesday. #L#
During her confession to war crimes before an ICTY trial chamber
that should decide on her sentence after she pleaded guilty to
crimes against humanity in October, Plavsic spoke about her role in
crimes committed against non-Serbs - Bosniaks (Muslims) and Croats
- during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"I now see and accept that several thousand innocent people became
victims of organised and systematic actions aimed at the removal of
Muslims and Croats from areas which Serbs regarded as their own,"
this former university professor said.
"The realisation that I am responsible for such human suffering and
for soiling the character of my people will always be with me," she
said.
Plavsic said that at the time of the atrocities she had been
convinced that this was "a question of the Serb survival and self-
defence".
"The Serb leadership, of which I was a part, actually carried out an
enterprise whose victims were many innocent people," she said.
"Self-defence and survival are no excuse for it," she admitted.
"In the end, even our compatriots believe that in this war we lost
our nobility," she told the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Crimes were triggered by "the blinding fear that led to an
obsession, especially among those of us for whom World War Two is a
living memory, that Serbs must never again allow themselves to
become victims," the war-time Bosnian Serb leader admitted.
"In this obsession to never again become victims, we allowed
ourselves to become the perpetrators" of crimes, she said.
She also admitted that on several occasions she had been warned of
the horrendous and inhumane treatment of non-Serbs, but at the time
she refused to face the fact, convinced that Serbs "are incapable of
doing something like that".
"I completely accepted claims about innocent Serb victims,"
Plavsic added.
By accepting her share of responsibility in that suffering, she
condemned the Serb leadership that she said was still "shamelessly"
convincing Serbs that the entire world was against them.
"The fruits of such leadership are evident: graves, refugees,
isolation and indignation at the entire world that has rejected us
because of such leaders," she said.
The Serb people has already paid dearly for the actions of its
leaders, she added.
At the end of her speech Plavsic (72) voiced hope that her
confession would help innocent Bosniak (Muslim), Croat and Serb
victims "not to become obsessed by bitterness which often turns
into hatred and which, in the end, is self-destructive."
She appealed to the ICTY to do all it can to satisfy justice for all
sides.
After pleading guilty in October to persecution on religious,
ethnic and racial grounds, i.e. crimes against humanity committed
in Bosnia from July 1991 to December 1992, the ICTY Prosecution, in
return, dropped another seven counts from her indictment,
including genocide.
The sentence is to be announced in January.
(hina) ms sb